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Satisfying winter breakfast

First meals to get your motor running

By Cindy Sutter Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
01/16/2013 01:00:00 AM MST

The Speck and Arugula breakfast at Tangerine in Boulder is lemon- and olive oil-dressed arugula with slices of speck, pine nuts and two fried eggs, making for a hearty breakfast with a nod toward the dinner table.
(
Paul Aiken
)

Winter breakfast ideas

In the summer, breakfast is easy -- a grab and go smoothie or some granola and yogurt. In the winter, it's nice to have something a little more fortifying and preferably hot. The key to a non-hectic morning is to make things ahead that can be microwaved, quickly cooked or made in your slow cooker. With the exception of the oatmeal, all of these are made more luxurious by the addition of a poached for fried egg.

Dinner leftovers, also, are always good in the morning. Just plan on eating a lighter lunch.Slow cooker oatmeal: Steel cut oats are the key for making an interesting texture. Google "slow cooker oatmeal recipes" for many interesting variations including oatmeal made with canned pumpkin and pumpkin pie spices.

Cheese grits: Use the stone ground variety. Cook the night before and plan on microwaving or slicing into squares and heating in a skillet coated with cooking spray. Top with salsa, vegetarian sausage, braised greens or sauteed mushrooms. Marinara sauce is good, too.

The comforts of soup: Keep in mind that pho is often eaten as breakfast food in Vietnam. Miso also makes a warming breakfast, as does just about every soup from tomato to squash.

Pizza: A useful thing about breakfast that you learned in college.

Rice and the like: From fried rice to quinoa pilaf to couscous with Moroccan-spiced vegetables. Delish.

It's hard to get up in the dark, especially when things are just so cozy and marvelous in your down quilt cocoon.

Add to that those days when it dawns cold and dreary, and it's clear that a power bar or bowl of cereal just isn't going to meet your breakfast needs. Which are: something a little heartier than summer fare, a dish with heft and lots of flavor. While traditional comfort breakfasts such as French toast or waffles have their place, a little zing from food that Americans normally associate with dinner can offer a much needed boost.

It was that idea of a dinner-breakfast hybrid that appealed to Alec Schuler when he began designing the menu for his breakfast and brunch restaurant, Tangerine.

"My background is in fine dining," says Schuler, who also owns Arugula Ristorante. "When I wrote the breakfast menu (I thought about) what sounds good, what I like to eat. I never worked in a breakfast restaurant prior to Tangerine."

On Tangerine's menu are plenty of standards such as waffles, pancakes and omelets, but Schuler also has incorporated foods he likes to eat in the morning.

"I wanted to make American brunch and breakfast standards meets Mediterranean savory," he says.

What that means is dinner-type items and sauces with eggs incorporated into the dish. Take arugula lightly dressed with olive oil and lemon with three or four slices of smoky, salty speck topped with two fried eggs. Or there's rich, silky polenta topped with romesco sauce, sauteed greens and two poached eggs.

"It's super flavorful," says Schuler, who adds that he eats breakfast at the restaurant about five days a week.

For breakfast inspiration from the other side of the world, try the Japanese breakfast at Alfalfa's Market, which is prepared by Sushi Zanmai.

There are three types of breakfasts, explains Sushi Zanmai Operations Manager Joe Simonet. The Ochazuke is a hearty rice soup made with either miso or green tea broth. Cooked crumbled salmon is added on top.

"That's the most popular item when it's cold," he says.

The two other options use pickled vegetables or Tsukemomo as the centerpiece. The pickled veggies include eggplant, daikon radish and cucumber served on top of white or brown rice. Miso is served alongside.

The full combination, called Obachan, means grandma.

"That's because it's a really old-style traditional Japanese breakfast that most grandparents would make," Simonet says.

The grandma-style meal is a grilled salmon fillet (Alfalfa's and Sushi Zanmai use organic, sustainably farmed salmon from the Shetland Islands) with white or brown rice; Tomago, Japanese omelet that is sometimes served as sushi; hijiki (seaweed) salad and pickled vegetables. It, too, is served with miso.

Simonet says some customers eat half of the extremely hearty meal for breakfast and half for lunch. Others eat the whole thing.

"It's the realization that it's healthier to have big meals at the beginning of the day, which according to all these dishes, we've known for 100 years," he says. "A lot of people come in looking to make breakfast a bigger part of their day."

That's a lot easier to do if the breakfast is truly rib-sticking and delicious.

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